Refugees Continue Returning their Homes in Syria

Almost 500,000 Syrians have returned to their homes this year, the UN say.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announces that more than 440,000 internally displaced Syrians and about 31,000 of those who fled abroad have now come back.
Most of them have returned to Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus with the aim of checking on their properties and finding out about family members.
Speaking on Friday, UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said his agency was now seeing a “notable trend of spontaneous returns to and within Syria” in 2017.
“Most of these people are returning to check on their properties, to find out about the family members. This is what we know from some of the evidence that we have gathered.
“In some cases they have their own perceptions about the security, whether they are real or perceived improvements in the security situation in the areas where they are going to.”
Since 2015, he said, about 260,000 refugees have already returned to Syria, primarily from Turkey.